New Game Plus
by Nendil
Summary: 50 topics, 1 sentence each. Even when starting a brand new slate, a little piece of destiny always tags along. Link/Zelda across all lifetimes and worlds.
1. New Game Plus

_**Notes:**__ Written for the 1sentence LJ community. Each prompt is labeled with the continuity its characters are drawn from. "Destiny's Opus" is my own (barely written) fic-verse, which you should just treat as an expansion/continuation of Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask._

_**Warnings:**__ Contains potential mild spoilers for EVERYTHING, particularly Spirit Tracks. Apologies ahead of time for my run-on abuse. Apologies also for any ideas from other fanfics that my subconscious may have snatched up and stashed away over the years._

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**#01 - Ring** [Oracle of Ages/Seasons]

At one point he amassed heaps and piles of rings, most of them unimportant and now lost over the years, but he could never bring himself to discard the Blue Joy Ring no matter how much he's outgrown it.

**#02 - Hero** [Twilight Princess]

This was not her Legend, Zelda tells herself when she sees those eyes that glint with feral longing, for she was not that Princess and he is not her Hero.

**#03 - Memory **[Destiny's Opus]

It was her memory that drove him away, her memory that saved him, and her memory that brings him home again.

**#04 - Box** [Phantom Hourglass]

She dreaded her rescue nearly more than her capture, stashed belowdecks like undignified cargo with nothing but wooden crates and rats for company, but she didn't count on Link to visit her nearly every day, to tell and boast and sometimes cry a little because he was still young and far away from home, and sometimes merely sit and hold her unfeeling hand for a few hours until Linebeck called their destination.

**#05 - Run** [Ocarina of Time]

"Run!" he shouts over his shoulder, and she doesn't obey not because the Redead caught her in its death-scream, not because long gowns and high heels weren't made for running, but because the tower is crumbling and he is still entangled in battle and her magic is the only thing keeping stones and gates from smashing down on him.

**#06 - Hurricane** [Wind Waker]

Niko panics and Mako pukes, but she pays them no heed and keeps her grip hard and white-knuckled on the helm, eyes fixed on the rain-drenched figure poised at the tip of the prow whose hands dance sally-scuttle with the bone-white baton to weave the tempest gales away from their ship's hull, and she laughs in the face of the piddly storm that thinks it could best Captain Tetra and her unconquerable crew.

**#07 - Wings** [post-Majora's Mask]

It wouldn't work, he explains to her over and over, because there are no owl statues in Hyrule, and she pouts because she _so_ wanted to see him with oversized feathery wings.

**#08 - Cold** [Spirit Tracks]

Perhaps he should have planned better than to take her to Wellspring for their outing, because princesses who were not ghosts were not made to sit in snow no matter how lovely it made the scenery - but then she huddles up against him for warmth, and maybe he had planned pretty well after all.

**#09 - Red **[any]

The potion is red but his blood is redder, and she prays to any Goddess who'd listen that it would be enough as she tips the last trembling drops between his red-stained lips.

**#10 - Drink** [Ocarina of Time (or SSBM ;P)]

She chides him every time for having manners like he was raised by Moblins (to which he retorts he was raised by fairy children and a _tree_), but secretly she adores the milk mustache he sometimes forgets to wipe off his lips.

**#11 - Midnight** [Destiny's Opus]

He cherishes his sleep like other men cherish a vintage _Chateau Romani_, so there are only two reasons he's ever awake after midnight (one being monsters).

**#12 - Temptation **[any]

One of these days she's going to succumb to the urge to yank off that perpetual hat and see what's under it - possibly _more_ hats.

**#13 - View **[Wind Waker]

Sometimes she sends him up the mast on purpose.

**#14 - Music** [Spirit Tracks]

The first time he heard her sing, all the heavens opened up and the ground disappeared beneath his feet and he knew he was hopelessly, irrevocably in love... too bad they were fighting for their lives at the time.

**#15 - Silk **[Destiny's Opus]

He feels a little guilty for laying battle-callused hands on skin that has only ever known fine silk and lace, but her response seems to suggest she doesn't particularly mind.

**#16 - Cover** [Ocarina of Time (manga)]

The witches bear down upon their dead-end prison, and he covers her body with his own in desperate hopes that she would know a little less pain, and then the fire comes—

**#17 - Promise** [Link's Awakening]

There are times when he thinks the sea will claim him at last, times when he wishes it would, times when delirium overcomes him and he nearly flies away again on Marin's siren song - but he remembers that he made a promise to return to her in one piece, on his ship and not on his shield, and he pushes the lashed-together pile of driftwood onwards again to blue oblivion.

**#18 - Dream **[Ocarina of Time]

She doesn't tell him that she has _non_-prophetic dreams about him, too.

**#19 - Candle** [Destiny's Opus]

The signal was thus: a single candle after nightfall, lit at the sill of her south-facing window, and she needs only wait scant minutes before the soft _chink_ of a hookshot announces itself at her balcony.

**#20 - Talent** [Wind Waker]

Nudge is strong and Mako is clever, Zuko cooks best and Niko tells stories, and Gonzo can spit into a tin at thirty paces on a rolling ship, but Link is the only one who knows how to sass his captain and (half-)get away with it.

**#21 - Silence** [any :P]

He has always been better with actions than words, so sometimes she indulges him and they do not talk of letters or philosophy or politics at all.

**#22 - Journey **[A Link to the Past/Link's Awakening]

"Please return someday," she says, "for Hyrule will miss you," and she doesn't say whether she speaks in metonymy this time.

**#23 - Fire **[Wind Waker]

Well... maybe she could've aimed that catapult a _little_ better, but the look on his face was worth every spare barrel.

**#24 - Strength **[any]

Ganon should've known he never stood a chance to begin with, he realizes as he watches her dance through the barbs and blades of the diplomats' negotiations with a finesse he has never seen even on the battlefield.

**#25 - Mask** [Destiny's Opus]

He has played many roles - a postman, a Goron, a deity, an adult when his mind was a boy's, a boy when his heart is a man's - so it was easy, nearly easy, to slip on the stony mask of duty and pretend he feels nothing extra for his Queen.

**#26 - Ice **[Spirit Tracks]

It's a good thing ghosts don't feel the cold in a temple of ice - but a pity that they can't warm a shivering body with a hug.

**#27 - Fall** [Wind Waker]

Once, just once, the Hero teeters from the toll of the world's demands - and she was there to catch him.

**#28 - Forgotten **[Destiny's Opus]

"Where have you been since you opened the Sacred Realm?" she asks innocently, and all remnants of his hopes shatter.

**#29 - Dance **[post-Majora's Mask]

He absolutely, resolutely refuses to put on Kamaro's Mask in front of her, no matter how prettily she flutters her lashes.

**#30 - Body** [Destiny's Opus]

His body hosts a multitude of faded scars, and each one was known once to exactly one foe before he struck it down, but she is the only one privy to them all.

**#31 - Sacred **[any]

The sages and scholars proclaim many things sacred about the Princess Zelda - her title, her birthright, her attunement to the Goddesses - but he thinks them fools for missing her heart, her strength, her hair in morning sunlight.

**#32 - Farewells** [Majora's Mask (and Destiny's Opus)]

"Farewell, then," she says, and he wants to reach out and take her hand or tell her things or kiss her senseless, but he is no longer a grown man who could get away with sweeping gestures of passion, so he bows slightly—as slightly as a boy taught no manners would—and leaves her in the morning mist.

**#33 - World** [Twilight Princess]

Sometimes he glimpses her looking melancholy—she always looks melancholy—and wishes he had the solution for her, but he had lost it to another world a long, long time ago.

**#34 - Formal** [Spirit Tracks]

He is nervous, really really train-wrecked nervous, even though she told him a hundred times that it's no bigger a deal than the Engineer Ceremony was and he bore up under that just fine, but every time his eyes fall on her in all her finery his face goes pink and the world goes dizzy again.

**#35 - Fever** [Wind Waker]

Legendary heroes aren't supposed to get sick, she laughs at him, and he grumbles at her to shut up and that fearsome pirate captains aren't supposed to bring their own deckhands hot bowls of soup, either.

**#36 - Laugh **[post-Majora's Mask]

Like any proper princess, her amusement is borne on smiles, giggles, and titters, so he considers it a 100-Gold-Skulltula victory the day he tells her about Tingle and she laughs until she cries.

**#37 - Lies **[Destiny's Opus]

"I wish you didn't have to remember," he said quietly, not meeting her eyes, "you shouldn't have to go through all that again."

**#38 - Forever** [Ocarina of Time]

They should get to stay together forever, she says, because of all the people in the world the Hero of Time ought to have control over how much time he has, and he laughs amiably with her and wishes it were so.

**#39 - Overwhelmed **[Four Swords Adventure (manga)]

"Because you are one of the Links, and you too are a hero," she tells him with her voice full of light, and his world crumbles around him - but she is still there at the center of it all, and the light never looks so beautiful...

**#40 - Whisper **[Destiny's Opus]

Rumors fly like Keese on fire - the Princess is secretly-openly-occasionally-shamelessly consorting, they whisper, with a rustic farmboy—with a squire-in-training—with one of the fey forest folk—

**#41 - Wait** [Ocarina of Time]

Compared to the hours and days she now spends fretting until he emerged from the next temple, the past seven years suddenly seemed like nothing.

**#42 - Talk** [guess XD]

"Well excuuuuuse me, Prin—" he says for the last time, before she kisses him for the first time to shut him up for once.

**#43 - Search **[Minish Cap]

The first ever Kinstone piece she found, she swore up and down that she would fuse it with no one else but him - so he is out in the field again, cutting grass and sifting soil for Her Royal Highness.

**#44 - Hope **[any]

It's a tossup whether she'll coo and attend to his wounds personally this time, or sigh and drag him by the ear to the healers again.

**#45 - Eclipse** [Majora's Mask]

The old astronomer had lectured him once—a few onces—on the mechanics of eclipses, but nothing could possibly be big enough to eclipse that goddamn Moon - except her smile in the rare stolen hours when he allows himself sleep, and dreams.

**#46 - Gravity **[Super Smash Bros. Melee]

He can't help but be entranced by the way she seems to dance on the tip of a breeze - and jealous, too, as his hookshot falls just short of the ledge again.

**#47 - Highway **[Spirit Tracks]

He may have abandoned one dream to follow the track of another, but she still asks him personally for rides from time to time because she loves the passion for freedom and speed that would never extinguish from his heart - and his bright grin that grows all the wider when she squeezes into his engine cab so that they could face the wind and road and wide open country together.

**#48 - Unknown **[A Link to the Past]

He has no idea who Zelda is, or why she's imprisoned, or which way his uncle has gone, but a nagging sense of obligation drives him into the drenching night nonetheless.

**#49 - Lock** [any XD]

She has given up locking her door against him, because he treats it like some kind of blasted _puzzle_ and pilfers the key every time no matter where she hides it—even on her person—_especially_ on her person.

**#50 - Breathe** [Ocarina of Time]

Neither the mask nor the bandages do her breathing any favors, but she learns to deal with it because they aid her disguise—and because they are nothing compared to how the sight of the Hero of Time takes her breath away.

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**Misc. author's notes:**

Whee look at me expanding my horizons XD This was a really useful exercise and I loved getting the chance to delve into all of these worlds too. A few blabby words on some of the sentences:

_**#12:**__ Now in convenient haiku form!_

_Sometimes she wonders  
what that dumb hat is hiding_—_  
possibly more hats_

_**#13:**__ ...Years later.**  
#26:**__ She sure tried though. Aww.**  
#29:**__ Though sometimes he entertains a little fantasy of her wearing it. :X**  
#35:**__ I think this happened as a result of #6 :3**  
#36:**__ I imagine he acted it out, too.**  
#39:**__ Is it cheating to use Shadow Link? But I think the point is that he is, like Zelda says, all along...**  
#40:**__ Naturally, they're all correct.**  
#46:**__ I can't believe I actually got a Smash Bros. one in there XD Substitute with "Clawshot" for Brawl :P**  
#50:**__ From personal cosplay experience :P Not a practical costume for a ninja at all._

Thank you for reading, and if you review I would love it if you mentioned which ones were your favorites (or least favorites)!

_**Update 2/14/10:** Made sort-of companion art for this piece! Check my profile for the link to my journal._


	2. Time Will Tell

_Whoops, I couldn't resist and did another 50-sentence set... This one's strictly a sketch of Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask and beyond, in chronological order._

_**Rating:**__ K+ for a little suggestiveness.**  
Notes:**__ Sheik is entirely Zelda in disguise here. I feel like I shouldn't have to disclaim that!_

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A. Spring - when lives and hearts and hopes are green _(once upon a dream)_

**#15 - Touch**  
She feels the brush of destiny before she even turns around, a flicker of should-recognition across the sun-filled courtyard: _Is it you?_

**#11 - Name**  
"Strange," a tilt of her head like a curious bird, "it sounds somehow... familiar..."

**#40 - Innocence**  
"I'm sure the two of us can defeat him, don't you think?"

**#25 - Devotion**  
"Messenger of the Royal Family," the Great Fairy had called him, and he might have corrected her if he hadn't been beaming a little on the inside at the thought.

**#01 - Comfort**  
Ganondorf's looming presence at court still racks her with chills, but she gathers up courage from her newfound dream-champion and meets his venom glare with defiance - _We are__ going to stop you._

**#05 - Potatoes ***  
"You play that song too much, you clod," Navi huffs and disappears into the tree branches overhead, leaving him puzzled to what she has to be so miffed about.

**#10 - Ears**  
Gerudos tend to forget the sharpness of Hylian hearing, so no one notices a loitering princess picking up snippets of muffled scheming, ominous instructions, triumphant laughter - _Oh Link, please hurry._

**#34 - Lightning/Thunder**  
He's seen all this before - black clouds choking the sky, white horse erupting through the drawbridge gate, pleading blue eyes catching his for an eternal split-second - but if this is the scene from his dreams, then that means—

**#45 - Hell**  
"Please Impa, we have to go back, I gave him the Ocarina and he'll be killed if we don't help him Impa _please—_"

**#24 - Taste**  
At the most inappropriate time - Spiritual Stones spread over the altar, two notes of sacred song already echoing off the stone wall - came the most irreverent realization: _This ocarina's been in her __**mouth**__._

**#33 - Fear**  
She is safe at the moment, but "safe" means little when she has left behind everything precious to the mercy of the enemy, when all her shoddy hopes lie in one desperate message he might never hear, when a sudden presence fills her mind and her hand glows with light _what is happening?_

**#13 - Death**  
The mocking voice shakes his fading awareness while he's helpless to move even a muscle in defiance, and his last thought before whiteness drowns his senses is _I've failed her—_

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B. Summer - when embers embolden and emblaze _(fire-forged)_

**#21 - Life**  
The blue glow flickers and fades, casting into the broken world a newborn hero, a bewildered youth, the hopes of all the land - she takes a deep breath and steps into the light.

**#28 - Sickness**  
He has many things to learn about this new body, some obstacles to overcome and some advantages to master, but there is one aspect he doesn't quite understand and can't quite ignore, especially when it conjures visions of _her_—

**#27 - Blood**  
The first time she spies rust-red stains through the green tunic, she nearly abandons the whole charade just to fly to his aid - but this, too, was the toll demanded of a Hero, so she pays another price for him instead and slips the potion into his saddlepack under the embrace of night.

**#12 - Sensual**  
One night, it is not cornsilk hair and clear-sky eyes that visit his dream but the voice of a slippery shadow, hushed and thick beneath a veil of bunched linen that slides slowly, tentatively down, dry and coarse like desert sand between his fingers... he wakes more confused than ever.

**#22 - Jealousy**  
The Sheikah warrior remains perfectly and enigmatically stoic as he escorts the Zora princess to safety, but inside she howls in what she is not sure is laughter or outrage, _Fiancée?_

**#06 - Rain**  
A drip of water on the bridge of his nose startles him back into consciousness, and he is surprised to see Sheik has not (for once) abandoned him in the opportune moment.

**#19 - Wind**  
At the Spirit Temple he grows bold, too bold, and she smiles behind her mask with both regret and relief that it would be their last such meeting as her magic whips up blinding sand between them.

**#32 - Confusion**  
Somehow his shadow guide and his bright princess are one and the same, and it's only the first of many things he barely understands as her nervous words flutter past his ears, but Lost Woods be damned, at least he knows there is _one_ thing that finally makes sense.

**#16 - Weakness**  
Her guard crumbles as he reaches for her, at last, _at last_—a booming voice crashes between them with dark roaring laughter, and her world disappears behind merciless crystal.

**#18 - Speed**  
"You have to rest first," cries Navi uselessly, but a force far more agonizing than weariness compels him up the endless crimson-carpet steps, and that heavy door looms ever closer ahead—

**#50 - Supernova**  
Sacred blade and blazing magic strike together as one, and it is everything—it is enough—it is over.

**#43 - Sky**  
He's not sure where they are or why, but the only thing that matters in this strange, empty realm is his Princess standing beautiful and fragile before him, closer than ever yet more unreachable than ever.

**#08 - Happiness**_  
Because it's what he deserves,_ the mantra fills the hollow void of her heart, and it's enough to keep her spell steady and her tears at bay until the light has faded completely away.

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C. Fall - when the clock strikes twelve _(will you be gone?)_

**#31 - Home**  
The forest is still there, and the village is still there, just as he left them, but his world is now so much bigger and his heart dwells somewhere beyond a child's treehouse walls.

**#39 - Smile**  
"I have to find Navi," he mumbles into his lap, and she offers him only blithe encouragement and an ocarina, tucking away wistful words and wishes for herself alone.

**#20 - Freedom**  
No more Hyrule, no more Navi, no more thoughts of _her_ - he tries to tell himself it's for the better, but he has never been a very good liar.

**#42 - Clouds**  
The moon is lost tonight, and though it's commonplace weather for this time of year, she can't help but search the sky again and again, her heart inexplicably tight at her throat.

**#38 - Gift**  
They are out of time and out of hope, for he has no weapons, no powers, no _body_ even to throw against the immense weight of the falling sky, but then his marionette fingers fall across rounded porcelain, and a memory blossoms—

**#17 - Tears**  
The Princess no longer ruins her dresses climbing trees and fighting mock-battles - her handmaidens breathe a sigh of relief - but to her, it is every bit a mourning.

**#47 - Moon**  
Perhaps Termina is really the other face of Hyrule, for everywhere he turns, a stranger wears a face he once knew - but there is one face he never finds, no matter where he travels.

**#09 - Telephone**  
She whispers a secret into the Gossip Stone, casts a prayer upon the web of rumors that the words spread far enough to reach wherever he may roam.

**#26 - Forever**  
Hasty though his goodbye had been, he never meant for it to be permanent - and as another same-new day dawns for the again-first time, he plays to himself a tune that echoes meaninglessly in this foreign never-land, and tries to ignore the first twinge of despair.

**#29 - Melody**  
The sound of her lullaby tugs her out of a dream, lonely and cold against the barely-rising sun - it had yearned, and called, and she had no way to respond.

**#03 - Soft**  
"Why," sighs Tatl, "are we spending this much time trying to help some guy who ran away from his girlfriend just 'cause he got turned into a kid?"

**#48 - Waves**  
Wishing on fairy fountains was a childish fancy she had long outgrown, but now she drops a handful of Rupees into the glowing pool and bares her heart once more upon the widening ripples - _Guide well his path, bring him home safe._

**#30 - Star**  
The constellations were unrecognizable in Termina, and he had developed a habit of not looking up very often - but one (_new_) night on the open, aimless road, he glimpses the Great Triangle bright in the sky for the first time in (three days? weeks? years?) a long time, and hope flares - at last.

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D. Winter - when we find warmth in one another _(don't let go)_

**#35 - Bonds**  
Her Triforce senses the return of its mate before she does, but even then she dares not believe it until he stands at the entrance to her courtyard, taller and tousled but still bright and bold, and every bit as ready to receive her falling into his arms.

**#02 - Kiss**  
"I missed you," she breathes, and tells him a flurry of things that set his heart soaring, but he has no such skill for words—only blind daring—and so tells her the same in a wordless, reckless way.

**#04 - Pain**  
Time and fate and duty can all whisk away a Hero again in an instant, she is wise enough to know this - but for this furtive moment, she coaxes a promise from his lips and it's enough to believe in.

**#37 - Technology**  
She is endlessly fascinated with the pictograph box, but he snaps only one more picture for his own keeping.

**#49 - Hair**  
She's just the tiniest bit disappointed to find that it does not, in fact, fill up the entire length of his hat.

**#44 - Heaven**  
"Well, I've _been_ to the Sacred Realm," he says, not to her nestled beside him but up at the blue-not-white-gold sky, "and I think it's nicer here."

**#23 - Hands**  
Beneath a cocoon of night, unpunctuated by firelight or poelight or stray roaming stars, only the soft glows of matching Triforce marks betray the exploratory trails over faces, and laces, and skin.

**#46 - Sun**  
She has no good explanation to Impa for how a princess got sunburned _there_.

**#07 - Chocolate**  
Darunia sends a "delicacy" for the banquet that largely resembles a hewed mass of lava rock - he is the only one brave enough to try it; she is the only one shrewd enough to talk him into it.

**#14 - Sex**  
"Nabooru says the Gerudo have a claim on you," she looks up from the letter, one eyebrow laughingly quirked at his indignant sputtering, "...or at least, a part of you."

**#36 - Market**  
He can't afford it just yet - the ring, yes; the combined setting of sapphire and emerald, no - but he sets his jaw and scrutinizes the back alleys for the last few golden Skulltulas - someday soon, he will.

**#41 - Completion**  
There's no telling how history will remember the bearers of the Triforce - as ageless legends, or as nameless players; but she is content, here and now - gazing out across her kingdom, his hand warm over hers - to leave the weaving of tales to time's whimsy.

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* **#05:** Bit of a stretch - the style of ocarina used in the Zelda games is called a _sweet potato_. I'm just too much a sucker for wordplay to not run with it...


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